Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 140
June 28, 2017
The Gut Honest Truth about the Real Law of the Farm & Love & Success: Only Broken Fields Yield
They broke ground the other day, the way you break open a piñata and the breaking makes you believe in good things coming.
It’s been a late spring.
Cold and wet. As if the sun’s been hiding, grieving a loud and polarized world.
Holding different opinions never has to stop us from holding on to each other.
When the sky finally leaked itself dry, the Farmer and one of his freckled girls, they head to the barren fields with their seeds and their willing hands.
The Farmer wore the same sweatshirt he’s had the last 12 years — since before she was born. The man likes familiar things, worn denim, beat up ball caps. She wore a smile a mile wide.
You can relax into an easy smile when you trust that your father holds your world.
The girl’s never broke the earth before. Never swung up onto a tractor seat and shifted that brute into gear and dropped that cultivator into the dirt and tore up the field.
So he hauls off the planter dropping thousands of seeds into the earth — walks across the field to show her how to run the cultivator, how to make a seed bed in front of him with the planter. How to drop those teeth down into the dirt and break up the soil under her, so that he can come behind and lay down those seeds.
I watch how he shows her, how the father shows his girl —- how she will have to shift the gears, how she will have to run the hydraulic levers, when to lift and when to drop, and when to turn and co-ordinate the whole dance. She never takes her eyes off him, nodding, repeating, memorizing.
She believes him: A field has to be broken open before it can grow anything up.
And he says what he always says: “Just stay steady. No fits and starts — just stay steady. Trust it as it comes.” I hear too… nod too. Steadiness is a balm to brokenness.
And I’m watching her eyes and say what I always say, maybe for me the most: “Don’t be afraid — don’t even be afraid of being afraid.”
And she winks, “Got it.”
Spring’s warming on our shoulders.
You can feel fear — but you don’t have to be afraid of being afraid.
When you aren’t afraid of being afraid — you transform fear into friend.
Sure, she may be a bit intimidated by the beast of a tractor she’s wheeling down the field, by the managing of the cultivator dance she has to choreograph, but the thing is:
Feelings get to accompany you — but they don’t get to control you.
Feelings get to inform you — but they don’t get to form you.
Feelings get to keep you company — but they don’t get to keep you in bondage. Only God Himself keeps you, cups you, carries you.
The girl drops the cultivator in… and again, always again, you just let the brokenness come.
The field smells earthy, like loamy possibility.
Brokenness never has to be the end— brokenness can always be the beginning.
Brokenness can be the beginning of growth.
The only way for anything to grow— is for something to break. Growth only happens when the status quo is broken.
Change can only happen when what is — is broken.
Do not be afraid of broken things —— this is the beginning of changing things. Growing things. Growing and changing you.
Only a broken field yields.
And our girl pulls down the field, breaking open the earth, so that seeds can be buried deep and break in the darkest places where they seem abandoned — and then resurrect to abundant life.
And I sit down on the edge of the field and watch her break soil and there’s that cross drawn this morning on my wrist.
What looks more broken than the Cross — but what wins more than the Cross?
Yet the Cross doesn’t look like it’s winning. The Cross doesn’t make Love look like it’s really winning.
The Cross is losing, pouring out, being given — to those who don’t love at all.
The Cross conquers everything —- but looks more broken than anything.
The Cross proves it: Love may not seem self-fulfilling, or look self-fulfilling, or feel self-fulfilling.
In actual fact: Deepest love — may look deeply broken.
The Cross nails it down: Love wins — when it looks broken. When it looks broken and given and poured out. Only a broken field yields.
Relationship is the essence of reality — and to have a relationship, you have to learn how to suffer — and to suffer like Christ, because this is love. Tell that to the newly weds, the new parents, the new graduates, this brave new world.
When you are most loving — suffering will most likely result.
Doing the right thing may not look like success but like suffering — and that may be the most successful of all.
Doing the right thing — may mean suffering through things — because things are broken in this world.
But this isn’t the sexy or trendy thing to concede, so nobody’s trying to hawk this on the social media streams or the shelves of Target and my heart kind of breaks.
Watching the breaking up of the earth down the expanse of the field, it can come:
Is God’s definition of love about breaking our happiness — or breaking us free from the self-love that threatens to imprison us all?
This is the question that can reshape our world.
God is love — doesn’t translate into: God is about my desires.
God is love — doesn’t mean God is about self-fulfillment.
God is love — means to deny self.
God is love — means God is about suffering. God is about being broken open and poured out.
Love doesn’t win if you’re really just loving your self.
We can forget: God isn’t called to affirm our desires — but He may call us to firmly nail those desires to the Cross.
And the beauty of Christianity is that what dies — will rise.
When you are called to a Cross — God is always calling us to our greatest good.
The wind blows across the field behind one girl who is being brave behind the wheel. There are truths that will blow where they will and change the world because they never change.
The girl looks over to her Father — and they catch each other’s eye and I witness that smile. She lets the brokenness come and trusts her Father to plant what will rise and this is the beauty of brave.
Walking back across the field to the pick-up parked at the road, the open and willing ground crumbles bit under my every step and I can’t help but ache a bit with surrendered beauty of here, just as it is, just as it comes.
Only a broken field yields.
When one of your own farm boys takes an eye to the sky over his Farmer dad & our broken fields ( or — one of the reasons why I flat-out love farming. A yielded life yields. )
Pick up our story of The Broken Way and how to love a brokenhearted world. This one’s for all of us who have felt our hearts break a bit…
This one’s for the brave and the busted and the real and dreamers and the sufferers and the believers.
This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way… into abundance
June 26, 2017
True Story: Why You Don’t Have to Be Brave Anymore
Sometimes you meet someone who is all kinds of down-to-earth and blazing honesty. Lisa Whittle is that woman & when she felt called by to God to write a manual, she didn’t fully understand. Her only expertise was running to God to help with her fears. But maybe this is all any of us need to point people to The Way, Lisa realized. So she has written her latest book, Put Your Warrior Boots On, for believers who are tired of being scared and want a better strategy for living. Lisa’s love runs deep to see people pursue Jesus for life, grow deep roots of faith, and walk strong in the midst of a world that so often seems to have gone crazy. It’s a grace to welcome Lisa to the farm’s front porch today…
Let me take this off the table: you don’t have to be brave.
Stay with me. Let me explain.
You know how you feel when a great song comes on the radio too much and in its popularity it becomes overplayed?
That’s what it’s like for me with the word brave.
I used to love it.
I used to feel like it was the best and strongest word I had ever heard, the word I always longed to be.
I used to think if I were just braver I could do that hard thing.
The list of hard things was long. I drove myself crazy with the list.
If I were braver I would witness for God.
If I were braver I would stop gossip in its tracks and fight harder for the underdog and bungee jump and maybe even travel to Africa.
If I were just braver.
But then it got used a lot. It got overplayed. I started hearing and seeing it at every turn—on bracelets, on plaques and T-shirts, in everyday conversation.
It led me to wonder what the word even meant.
Does brave mean strong? Heroic? Determined? Or is it just a casual description of a person who does what other people might not?
Then one day I am exiting the hair salon and I overhear one friend say to the other as they both walk out the door, “Oh, girl, you are brave,” and it is clear she is referring to her friend’s decision to cut her hair short and dye it purple.
Right then and there I silently push back on brave.
I remember my friends fighting cancer and other friends fighting in the military and the boy with no limbs I saw on TV who faces his giants every day with a smile, and I feel resentful.
When it comes to brave, purple hair shouldn’t make the cut.
No, we call too many regular things brave.
So here’s a new life strategy: we don’t have to be brave; we just have to be prepared.
This evens the playing field. This is something regular people like me can do. Brave feels hard and nebulous. Prepared feels doable and concrete.
The world tells us we won’t be safe, bad will come for us, evil will snatch our families away. Those things are too big for my brave. They’re too big for yours too.
And that’s okay, because Jesus is handling the brave part quite well without our help.
Even as we’re told by the world that God is not in charge, we walk in His authority. The world doesn’t have to understand that for it to be true. This position doesn’t change without the world’s endorsement.
Whether or not we feel able, we have it in us to put on our warrior boots and go.
You are able, but not because you mustered up a brave moment.
You are able to walk Jesus strong because of who He is and what He has already done. He is our confidence. His strength is our strategy. Our job is to live the warrior boots life of centered, steadied conviction and confidence and walk in His power and authority until this world ends.
Putting on our warrior boots, developing a core resoluteness, and becoming mentally and spiritually prepared for the battle aren’t things we can do in our own strength.
How often we hide in the shadows because we do not believe we have it in us. It’s not true.
Because of Jesus, we do. We all do.
The author of Hebrews tells us to keep our eyes on Jesus, “the champion who initiates and perfects our faith” (12:2). God is thorough. He’s not like us, starting lists He never finishes, leaving projects undone. In this verse He’s saying, I’ve started it with you (creation, salvation) and I’ll finish it with you (second coming, heaven, eternity), and your job is just not to break eye contact with Me in the process.
He is enough; He is always enough; He is forever enough.
To have strength we must stay with the strength, every second.
There is no faith in tough.
There is only faith in Jesus.
Putting our warrior boots on is not about mustering up human bravery.
It’s about keeping eye contact, staying solid, and walking it out with God…no matter what.
Lisa Whittle speaks to audiences across the United States, inspiring conversation and urging the church to be better. Lisa is a wife and mother of three who currently resides in North Carolina.
If you feel like the world has gone crazy and you’re just along for the ride, Lisa wrote Put Your Warrior Boots On for you.
She firmly believes you don’t have to start brave to stay strong and live a God-ignited life.
Discover how to outfit your days to support your faith…and experience the joy and release of trusting in your Savior.
[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
June 24, 2017
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.24.17]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Mary Anne Morgan / Moss Beach, CA
Mary Anne Morgan / Sea Cove Inn, Moss Beach, CA
Mary Anne Morgan / Moss Beach, CA
this woman’s photos kinda makes the world stops & exhales: you know you wanna go to balmy CA!
HA!
11 Very Different Types of Photography That Each Illuminate Our World
c’mon — who really knew?
No joke: These ‘Comedy Kids’ are serious about raising money for cancer research: #BetheGIFT
Dad: Stage 4 cancer. Daughter: a song for her daddy. Us: Um — heart fireworks.
Their smile — can you even??! one hero reunites with the little girl he saved:
“It was a miracle. That’s why I call Jeff her guardian angel.”
okay, so today — may really be a good time for a good look at our love languages
Lisa-Jo Baker
exactly this — good stuff here: I Got Tired of My Scale Being the Loudest Voice in My Head
Jennifer Tucker
gorgeous in every way: don’t miss some of these beautiful “Letter for the Lord” free printables
maybe the perfect way to focus on God’s Word with a new verse and printable for every day this month?!
so — let’s start here… what do you need to know to read the Bible effectively?
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
I mean — tracking with her does something to my soul. You too?
Undone: this dad biked 1400 miles to hear his deceased daughter’s heartbeat in another’s man’s chest — on Father’s Day
I am all in here with Kristen, and am on the board of Mercy House Global, and togESTHER — we are the Esther Generation — called for such a time as this, right where we are, to change the world for our sisters: because every woman matters.
Shine your light this summer with Mercy House Global’s Summer Sale: come see these life-changing products
These new fair trade items are changing the world! (so thrilled about this!)
Use code: WELOVESUMMER to get FREE SHIPPING on your entire order.
honestly, we’re all asking at some point: Does God Love Me? good, good, words, Jefferson Bethke
caught in the act: Photos of Indiana woman helping blind Cubs fan hail a cab go viral
seriously — worth really pondering: Five More Minutes
The Prayer I Have Prayed Most: a powerful teaching from John Piper
listening to that still small voice…
One in six young people are Christian as visits to church buildings inspire them to convert
kids are the best humans: so — this is how they answered this question —
“what makes you two different from each other?” Hilariously perfect!
Straight up — I read this 4 times this week. I cannot even (!!): How Refugees Revived One White Iowa Church
the world can be a beautiful place: with a little hard work and lots of love? so many possibilities…
she’s living with an eternal urgency – by donating her Make-A-Wish funds to an unreached people group with the Gospel #BetheGIFT
maybe we all just need to go out today and sing from our hearts — just like this?
Post of the week from these parts here:
… cannot get this image out of my mind – I LOVE THIS SO MUCH: THIS is What Success Looks Like: #WWR #WRD
wished you’d made it to The Justice Conference? I’m telling you — this one by Jenny Yang kinda blew up my world
Take the Dare, Join the Revolution, Pick Up The Broken Way
it’s kinda hard to remain seated for this one
…it can feel like life’s got us in a prison — but on the inside, where God is making new life, we’re free. It can feel like we’ve lost — but not a day goes by without His unfolding grace that. makes. us. win. this. race. It can feel like the night has won — but nothing can ultimately steal us from the One Who is.
So! “…we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, *not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.*” 2Cor4MSG
A grace that holds you when everything is breaking down and falling apart—and whispers that everything is somehow breaking free and falling together.
The bottom line, and the finish line, is simply this: The God who has carried you till now can be trusted to carry you till you’re through… right through to the very end — which, then, on the other side, will be a perfect, forever beginning.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
June 22, 2017
you’d better believe that you’re a heroine
Melanie Dobson discovered her love of the written word at the age of seven, scribbling her observations and ideas into a little red journal. Words continued flowing through her as she grew, pouring out in poetry, songs, and most of all, through stories. Writing is now a form of worship for her. Every story she writes is an offering laid at the altar of the Master Creator, as she prays He will use it to draw people closer to Him. In her latest novel, she explores what it’s like to live as a refugee and the great blessing of journeying alongside someone who needs both a friend and a home. It’s a grace to welcome Melanie to the farm’s front porch today…
Two children. A boy and girl.
That’s what I saw in my mind’s eye as I looked out the window, studying the branches of a weeping cedar that draped toward the ground.
The leaves were a silvery green, almost like tears mourning a loss.
Because it knew—the kids harbored in its tree house had to run.
Only a glimpse from behind this glass, in the world of my imagination, but a story began to unfold inside me. Picture by picture. Frame by frame.
I prayed and then I waited.
Sipped green tea and offered up my keyboard, asking God to fill the pages with His story.
By grace, the words began to come that morning, spilling out on my screen.
Fiction, yes, but rooted like the weeping cedar, grounded in the truth of what so many people are suffering today. Children and their parents alike running for their lives, far from their homes.
Refugees who leave everything behind and then find themselves lost in another land, far from what they know and the people they love.
More than 65 million people are living as refugees, forced to flee because of militants, drought, war.
An unprecedented crisis, overwhelming in number and scope.
An unprecedented opportunity to love our neighbors from around the world: “ For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your house.”
Jesus’ words, exhorting us to love our brothers and sisters as we love Him.
None of us can help 65 million people on our own, but together we—the body of Christ—are a mighty army, fully equipped to fight evil with love. We can serve and pray as a body. Provide cups of water to thirsty lips. Deliver boxes of food with a smile.
And?
The heroines in my real world are ladies who have offered up their passions and talents to be used by Him.
All of them serving as sisters in Christ, but in very different ways.
Tamara, one of the most courageous women I know, travels into some of the most dangerous places in the world, meeting refugees in their tents and camps and boats. Capturing their stories on film.
Tamara doesn’t see danger. She sees hurting people who are literally dying to find a home. People who need someone to listen. Someone to care. She’s feet first in the body of Christ and then ears.
But she never sees herself as helping. Instead she says that she’s the one blessed:
My life has been transformed by the strength in their stories. My view of God enlarged by the depth of their hope. I witness courage and find faith.
My friend Leslie is unique as well. She’s like a hand who serves with kindness.
Instead of traveling to the Middle East, she loves refugees in her city. For the last year, she and her family have been mentoring a family who fled Afghanistan. Driving them to appointments. Helping them decipher documents and pay bills.
My mom—she bows her head regularly to pray for Syrian friends, a refugee mother trying desperately to reunite with her children. Praying for hope and help when things seem hopeless.
And then there is Megan. On some days she is like skin: refugees see her when she welcomes them at the airport or shows respect by sharing tea with them in their new home.
On other days, Megan is more like muscle, connecting those who want to love their neighbors but don’t know how. Through Refugee Care Collective, she partners with people across our city to build restart kits, stock cupboards with food, place stuffed animals on beds about to be filled.
Small acts, she says, make the biggest difference in a refugee’s life.
Me—I’m not exactly sure where I fall in the body.
Today I delivered coffee cups and creamer to Pamoja House, a place where refugees have found home. Then I returned to my keyboard to write about the glimpses of story that God has given me.
Maybe I’m a finger. Or toe. Nothing grand.
Yet God doesn’t call me or any of us to be grand. He calls us to be faithful.
Jeanette, the co-founder of Pamoja, has journeyed with hundreds of refugee families over the past fourteen years, helping them carry their tremendous loads. Through relationship, through the love of Christ and breaking of bread, she’s watched the hardest of stories being redeemed.
There are so many ways for us to use our gifts, love the hurting but resilient people finding refuge in our cities and towns. We can offer a cup of water, something to eat. Deliver kits packed with items that show we value them. Welcome them home.
We can pray, specifically that His perfect love would cast out fear. Pray for opportunities to meet the refugees in our communities. Pray that families would be reunited, hearts would be restored.
We can open our front doors, offer a meal and conversation to people missing family and friends, all that is familiar to them. Physical items are necessary but relationships—those are balm to a wounded soul.
We can teach or tutor a student learning English. Take a new friend shopping. Teach someone how to drive. Advocate when he or she needs a voice.
We can listen and learn and share their stories, inspire others to use their gifts as well.
For there is incredible power in story. That’s why Jesus, I believe, liked to speak in parables.
Often what we need to hear most is reflected back to us through the journey of someone else.
Often what we need to hear is that we’re not alone.
Like the story of the wounded traveler ignored by so many who passed by, left dying on the road.
And the Samaritan who gave time and money and resources to rescue this traveler. An ordinary man, an enemy at that, offering compassion to a foreigner in desperate need of a friend.
“Go and do likewise,” Jesus tells us.
And so, together, we go.
Equipped with the uniqueness of our gifts to love and serve —
catching the wind, everyday heroines in this story for His glory.
Melanie Dobson’s desire is to be faithful in pouring out the stories that God has etched into her heart. She is the author of sixteen novels, a writing teacher, and the mom of two amazing girls, both welcomed home through adoption. She and her husband, Jon, are thankful to be part of a church community passionate about caring for refugees in their city of Portland, Oregon, and around the world.
Melanie’s latest novel, Catching the Wind, is about a boy and girl who lose one another after escaping Nazi Germany.
Seventy years later, a journalist begins searching for the girl, and what she uncovers ultimately transforms her life.
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
June 20, 2017
This is What Success Looks Like: #WWR #WRD
Dear World on World Refugee Day,
This is what a smiling picture of success looks like and don’t let the poison of any fear tell you any different.
Esther Havens
This is the smile of a child refugee, a girl who is working hard to be a future doctor — because the world needs healers and believers and dreamers and peacekeepers and love leaders, in a world facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, with more than 7 million child refugees right now from Syria alone.
This is one very real little girl who once lived in Aleppo under a rain of bombs, who lived through a thousand 9/11s, day after day after day, who cowered when the windows shattered, when the rockets hissed, when the blood of children splattered on her in the streets.
Now she rides a pink bike with streamers down a quiet North American street, her two little sisters peddling behind, swept up in a wake of grace. Now she plants peppers with her Mama in their backyard garden, and kisses her Dad good-bye every morning as he leaves for his very own full-time job as a welder in a Mennonite workshop.
In a world of exploding headlines, there’s a braver world of us who are waging hope.
A world of us who says those nearly 3 million child refugees who have lost their access to any education because of war — the equivalent of every single person living in the city of Chicago, the third largest city in the USA — those children deserve to find books in their hands instead of guns, deserve to find skills before they become a lost generation, stumbling bitterly and and desperately for decades.
A world of us who say: The greatest risk to our security happens when fear is our main currency. Who refuse to become prisoners of hate but dare to be champions of hope. Who believe that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world and if God be for us than who can be against us — but if we’re against children made by God, than what does it matter who is for us?
A world of us who say: Every crisis forks your way into two roads: one toward hope and one toward despair. Courage determines your way — and the only way to get to abundance is through endurance.
And her parents have endured mortar fire and rocket bombings and birthing a baby out in a field because there was no safe place under a roof or even the sun, but her daddy never gave up believing that there was a way in this broken world to find a home that wasn’t the mouth of a monster. And he kept sticking to courage’s way, hope-ward bound and bound to Hope and took the way all refugees must take: extreme vetting through 18 levels of governmental investigation over 24 months, interviewed for hours at a time, more than 6 times, because vetted refugees aren’t a threat to anyone’s life, but are actually the one’s being threatened with losing their lives.
And the facts are?
This child refugee doesn’t eat grass for breakfast like they do in Aleppo — she eats granola on yogourt and she doesn’t go days without food — she goes weeks without fear. Her smile, her dreams, aren’t crushed under rubble in some bomb-decimated Syrian street — she’s wakes only to crushing grace and a tsunami of possibilities and an eruption of hope — her with near perfect 9-month-old grinning English.
“Look, Miss Ann! My swimsuit!” And she holds it up to show me — her first swimsuit, the one her hijab-covered mama bought her at Costco. She’s 11 and she’s never swam before because her country’s been a bloodbath of terror and I’m telling you: it can rent your heart with joy to see a child not running from waves of bullets but splashing in the backyard waves of summer.
She had told me once, after several weeks of joining our kids in our backroad chapel’s Sunday School: “I know what sin is.” She tells me in brave, faltering English “Sin is not doing — what God would want.”
And I cup her face between my hands and nod, her eyes looking into mine, reflecting my own lurking fears.
Yes, glorious, smiling Former Child Refugee, Future Doctor, you tell me: Sin is not doing what God would want — and when would God want us to bar our doors from children fleeing the horrors of war?
And wars are won by winning the battle for hope.
Every refugee is a war survivor — and a hope warrior.
Every child refugee
is a hope prodigy.
And there is a world of us who will stand tonight and our hearts break that people are judged on the lands of their birth and the color of their skin,
that people are seen as worthless because it’s easier for us to care more about our comfort and less about anyone else’s very survival,
that people can be seen as Other instead of Ours, and if any of us think our God cares only about Our people and not about Other people, then we’re not worshiping God but an idol made in our own image.
But there is a world of us who will keep watch through the darkness with our torches of hope, and we will set holy fire to the night with our relentless courage and we will burn up despair with His rising Light.
There is a whole world of us Hope Warriors who don’t hold out mostly for ourselves, but remember how to hold on to each other, how to live given and love large and how to make hope our home — and make our home a beckoning refuge of hope.
And when she stands there, with her sisters, holding a string of lights up for me to see — I think that.
How success always looks like being a blazing, brazen star in the dark —- and together, we can all be millions of them, shattering all the dark.
Related: Stand Now with all of us Hope Warriors for Refugees & be a star shattering the dark
June 19, 2017
Has God asked you to abandon your dream?
Have you ever had to let a dream die? Ever had to let go of something you’d been holding on to that you maybe never really had in the first place? Jared C. Wilson is writing today about how it’s not easy letting go of something you’ve waited a long time for, put your hopes and dreams into, even your blood, sweat, and tears. It feels like a death. But sometimes, by God’s mercy, it feels like really living. Join Jared on the front porch today and let him tell you his wonderfully heartbreaking story…
I recently resigned from pastoral ministry.
Lord willing, I will take it up again someday, but for the moment I am on an indefinite sabbatical from vocational ministry.
I took my first ministry position over twenty years ago, the summer I graduated high school, serving as youth minister for Zion Chinese Baptist Church in Houston, Texas.
I have been in and out of ministry positions over the years, but after leaving our little church plant in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2009 to move to Vermont, I believed we had finally come home.
I was not looking beyond that place. In my heart and mind, I had come to live and die with Middletown Springs Church.
On my last Sunday in the Middletown Church pulpit, February 15, 2015, I preached on Genesis 22. I had begun preaching through Genesis more than a year prior and I saw no reason why my leaving should disrupt the plan.
I didn’t know when I began that journey that Genesis 22 would be the end of the line for me, but the Lord did.
The narrative we find in Genesis 22 is of Abraham taking his son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him at the Lord’s command and February 15 was my own journey up the mountain, knife in hand.
In my favorite book on the life of the church, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:
“When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God.”
As a pastor, I took the particular section on what Bonhoeffer calls the “wish dream” very much to heart.
The wish dream is basically what the Bible calls idolatry .
And the thing about idolatry, the thing about wish dreams, is that we so identify with them we lose all true bearings about ourselves. Often, we don’t know who we are apart from them.
We all have wish dreams about just about everything in our life—we have wish-dream jobs, wish-dream spouses, wish-dream families, wish-dream lives.
If you find yourself constantly frustrated and seeing all you don’t have, Bonhoeffer actually says this is a good predicament because it puts you on the verge of having your wish dream shattered and finally facing reality.
All of Abraham’s hopes and dreams were bound up in Isaac. Isaac was the child God promised. Isaac was his parents’ wish dream.
I imagine Abraham had a vision for how God’s promise to multiply his descendants and expand his legacy into eternity would play out, and this lonely scenario of taking the wish dream up the mountain to slay it was not it.
When I believed God was asking me to quit my job, I experienced an internal crisis. He might as well have commanded me to put a knife in it.
God asked me to quit. And when He did, He killed my dream.
I knew full well that ministry can become an idol.
But if you had asked me about it at any point before I was contemplating God’s call to leave the ministry, I would have assured you that, of all my idols, ministry was not on the list!
Isaac was, in one way, an idol for Abraham. Abraham’s whole life had revolved so much around the hope of Isaac. So, looking at Genesis 22 leading up to my last Sunday, I dared to ask myself, How would I know what my real idols are?
Well, one of the litmus test questions I’ve been fond of giving out to others in diagnosing idolatry is this: What, if taken away from you, would cause you a great crisis of identity?
I didn’t know how much pastoral ministry was an idol for me until I believed God was asking me to set it aside. I could talk a great game about idolatry, but then God had the audacity to test me on this! He actually asked me to set it aside.
I wanted to know, “For how long, God? For what time?” He wouldn’t say; He still hasn’t said.
And then my worry kicked in.
Because that’s one of the questions I worried about being asked: How long are you going to be out of pastoral ministry? And don’t you know, in the months since my announcement, numerous people have asked me this, with varying levels of concern?
I have been flattered and encouraged by their sense of “missing” my ministry but also greatly cautioned by what I self-righteously perceived in it, as well—namely this: If I’m not in pastoral ministry, what am I?
Like Abraham’s wife, Sarah, I worried about the laughter of others. I worried about their criticism, their questions, their disapproval. That’s a big one for me: disapproval.
But ten years ago God broke into that little guest bedroom where suicidal me was crying and praying my guts out, and He grabbed hold of me and proclaimed by His Spirit, I love you and I approve of you.
I learned there, in the rubble of my dreams for my life, my ministry, my everything—the rubble of myself—that Christ is all and that trying to measure up is garbage.
This is why, for all my screwups as a pastor, all my sins and weaknesses, I can still boast in Christ.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is our only hope and security of enduring approval, of eternal validation, of spiritual fulfillment, of eternal joy.
When my wife and I heard him say, Set this aside. Give this to me, I was thinking of what people would say, all the dreams I had, and how I didn’t want to see those dreams die.
But in the end we gathered up our meager faith and said, “Here we are, Lord. Whatever you want.”
My availability to God’s call to sacrifice—Abraham’s availability to God’s call to sacrifice, your availability to God’s call to sacrifice—is predicated on understanding that God doesn’t need any more messiahs.
He sent One.
The job is finished.
We are not needed. I am not needed.
Ah, but I’m wanted .
That’s liberating, isn’t it? To not be needed but wanted?
What wish dream do you need to put a knife in?
Jared C. Wilson oversees publishing content at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri and serves as managing editor of the resource site For The Church. He served in church ministry for over 20 years and has authored numerous books, including Gospel Wakefulness and The Story of Everything.
Jared’s latest book, The Imperfect Disciple: Grace For People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together, is a discipleship book for normal people, for people like him, who know that discipleship means following Jesus to some pretty difficult places. Jared says this book on discipleship is written for people who don’t feel saved each morning until they’ve had at least two cups of coffee and for the men and women who sit in their small groups wondering if it’s safe to say what they’re thinking. For the sake of the cut-ups and the screw-ups, the tired and the torn-up, the weary and the wounded, The Imperfect Disciple is for you.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
June 17, 2017
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.17.17]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Dirk Dallas via www.fromwhereidrone.com/gallery
Dirk Dallas via www.fromwhereidrone.com/gallery
Dirk Dallas via www.fromwhereidrone.com/gallery
the most breathtaking views you may see all weekend?
best pool party ever?
How to See the Best Total Solar Eclipse in a Century
we gathered ’round this one
an unmistakable & unlikely bond: he saved the life of this condor who fell from the nest as a young chick. He took care of the bird until he was able to return and live in the wild – but apparently the bird hasn’t forgotten his Good Samaritan – and he flies back and visits him every now and then
had to share? free printables for dad!
all of this…at 91?!
Father’s Day: The Real Heroes Don’t Wear Capes
so she’s on to something right here
Jennifer Tucker
gorgeous in every way: please don’t miss some of these beautiful “Letter for the Lord” free printables
Such a great way to focus on God’s Word with a new verse and printable for every day this month!
“Love one another with great love”
a beautiful story: “Through God’s work in our lives, we’ve beaten the odds that divorce would be the outcome of our ill-advised union.”
you’ve got to meet him:
he sews the stars and stripes onto American flags for a living, as he advocates for those with learning disabilities, like himself, to find employment
an extraordinary act of love #TheBrokenWay #BeTheGIFT
this dad’s beautiful gift? he chronicled ‘first day of school’ for all 12 years
a new birth into a beautiful family
“For the first time in nearly a year, I sat and began to type the words of my heart. The words turned into pages and the pages turned into a story and as I wrote it for you, I was writing it for me, too, and the Lord was graciously reminding me of all the beauty and all the Truth He has shown me through both the joys and the sorrows of our last many years of life.” Katie (Davis) Majors, author of Kisses from Katie
the one’s for those who feel like they don’t belong
what a story: Thousands of Iraqis have fled Mosul, but this American family moved in
when you get to the end of yourself and have to completely rely on God
they channeled an insult into a victory
so we’re coming across the country this week with a tiny house:
… sometimes you leave home in the dark looking for home. Who knew that looking for home always begins looking through the dark & refusing to be afraid? Keep walking through the dark & you’ll find home. Ask Abraham.
Truck’s loaded up. Farm’s asleep and the wide open road lies ahead. The next couple thousands of miles is about #findinghome — finding a #tinyhouse & bringing it home, back across the country, to the farm, a #tinyhouse that knows a home isn’t about impressing anyone but pressing hearts into the safe arms of God. A tiny house that knows we don’t need more space like we need to make space to be more. A tiny house that offers the invitation & relief to come and be small.
Sometimes what seems small is the most meaningful of all — when seen through the lens of God.
Playlist set. 40 hrs of cross country roads & the ocean ahead — and a #tinyhouse calling our name, begging for us to bring it from the ocean back to the farm. We may have once been lost but now are found— and are always finding home… even here, right where we are.
… they said, at the beginning, that God’s Spirit brooded like a winged bird above the waiting earth, and even now what makes a country great is the greatness of its Maker, the God who rides its clouds, who waters its broken open & thirsty ground.
No matter how the winds and loud voices of this moment move, all of creation testifies:.
You touch the sky when you stay grounded in the Word.
He is our always & only & forever home.
1335 kms & 12 hrs behind us as this bunch of farm kids keep hauling a beat up Dodge pickup west. Bye Chicago & Des Moines & we’re headed right for you, Omaha.
… hey ‘Merica, with His glory glancing off a thousand hills from Nebraska to Wyoming, with your thousand church steeples pointing brazenly to the Giver of all, with your truckers hauling tirelessly across the spine of your backroads, like grace can be delivered in worn Levis & kind smiles under trucker caps —
you remember whence your help comes from, you remember that He alone is worthy, you remember that when one of you is busted a bit, you all are, & you will all bust it out so everyone is okay.
You remember that strength comes from staying on your knees, that the only way to stand tall is to stand on His Truth as the only truth, that community is made of cookies delivered to next door neighbors & reaching out across backyard & racial fences & living broken & given like bread & this world is beautiful when we believe the best — & what does it help to believe anything else?
You remember that: Love only wins when we lose our lives for others. Love only wins when we die to self so He gets the victory. Love only wins when we live given.
For God so loved the world… that He gave — and our home is always found in givenness. Be it thanksgiving, forgiving, caregiving — the life giving way is always living given.
My face hurt for smiling over all His lit glory tonight.
These farms kids are dreaming big this week and are driving a new tiny house across the country, from Portland, Oregon back to the farm. Follow our crazy dream this week on Instagram.
tears here: a special father’s day song for her dad who is fighting cancer
God absolutely is.
10 things God is: with John Piper
Do not leave the internet today without watching this.
You will not be the same — guaranteed.
Post of the week from these part here
Unexpected Operating Instructions on Life: How to be an Artist, a Parent, a Creative, a Dreamer
the whole earth is full of His glory
After viewing a wide range of their Bibles at their gathering center in Oklahoma, I could not be more excited about this, could not be anticipating this more: Museum of the Bible is a 430,000 square foot museum opening in Washington DC — just blocks from the Capital and the National Mall.
When it opens in November 2017, it will be the most technology advanced museum in the world — and it’s sole purpose is to get people engaged with the Bible.
Join me in a movement to honor the Bible, and add your name to Museum of the Bible’s One Million Names campaign!The Museum of the Bible’s One Million Names Wall will display the names of one million people who honor the Bible — please, be one of them, add your name to the wall? By adding your name, you are leaving a legacy and sharing your commitment to the Bible with the world.
As you make your declaration, you will be entered for the chance to win a trip to tour the museum with me (and really, you could not tour this museum with anyone more excited) before it opens to the public!
Let’s experience the emotion, inspiration and thoughts provoked by the impact, narrative and history of the Bible.
This truly is a unique once in a lifetime opportunity.
Museum of the Bible will fly you and a guest round trip to Washington D.C., provide a hotel stay for two nights, & schedule a pre-opening tour with you, so this Bible-loving farm girl can tour the museum with you. There is no entry fee or donation required to enter this drawing, but you must register to win before June 30.
ENTER HERE TO WIN A FREE TRIP FOR TWO TO WASHINGTON, D.C. TO TOUR THE MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE WITH ME!
Take the Dare, Join the Revolution, Pick Up The Broken Way
Broken Things
…it can feel like life’s got us in a prison — but on the inside, where God is making new life, we’re free. It can feel like we’ve lost — but not a day goes by without His unfolding grace that. makes. us. win. this. race. It can feel like the night has won — but nothing can ultimately steal us from the One Who is.
So! “…we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, *not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.*” 2Cor4MSG
A grace that holds you when everything is breaking down and falling apart—and whispers that everything is somehow breaking free and falling together.
The bottom line, and the finish line, is simply this: The God who has carried you till now can be trusted to carry you till you’re through… right through to the very end — which, then, on the other side, will be a perfect, forever beginning.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
June 16, 2017
Unexpected Operating Instructions on Life: How to be an Artist, a Parent, a Creative, a Dreamer
So you asked how?
I’ve been thinking about your question, the one you asked the other day, about how — how to be an artist, a mother, a creative, about how to live your life?
I don’t know much. And there’s a lot more than just this.
But maybe it’s a bit of how Mary Oliver put it: Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell About It.
And somedays I think maybe she sorta stole the words of Jesus, because they sound like the essence of a life of communion, a life of thanksgiving, a eucharistic life:
Instructions for living a life
Forget paying for the borrowed life because it ain’t real and every single one of us is already living on borrowed time.
Pay attention to the shades of the sky over you and the smell of the soil under you and the unexpected ways of the souls all around you, pay attention to redemption and exceptions and confessions and His reflection and pay attention to resurrection.
Pay attention to the lilies of the field, to the soft carpet of hair on the curve of a baby’s ear, to the warmth of sun as you lay on the back lawn and breathe.
Pay attention long enough to experience life and you buy your brain enough food so it doesn’t starve.
Turn off your phone. Be still. Be present — and you get the gift of now.
Do it often: grab a lifeline by stepping offline.
You’ll find your true self when you look for your reflection in the eyes of souls — and not the glare of screens.
And be okay with not being seen or heard. It will let you hear and see better.
And be okay with not being liked: life and art are never about applause — and always about altars.
Pay Attention and forget paying for the internet things, because that can catch you up and leave you empty.
And forget paying for the credit card things because that can leave you feeling disoriented and discontent and discredited, forget paying for the things that make your closet hurt and your wallet hurt and your very soul hurt because the frame of your life wasn’t meant to carry the burden of their stuff.
Pay attention to the ugly beautiful and the beauty of Christ playing in ten thousand unlikely places and and the face of Christ in the face of suffering and pay notice before your life is given notice and pay it forward and pay attention because this is how you spend your one life well.
You buy awe when you pay attention.
Practice paying attention and you daily practice the scales of creativity.
The only way to spend your life as a creative is to pay attention to the world.
Pay attention — and let go of perfection.
Perfectionism is slow death by self. It will kill your skill, your spark, your art, your soul.
Pay attention and don’t sell out. Because I think what they say is true: Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you’re really buying into someone else’s system of values, rules and rewards.
Remember to pay only for the things that are guaranteed to fit the size of your soul and you can go ahead and lose the receipt because His grace makes you the forever recipient, only pay for that which will make your soul sing in the midst of a fire: Pay Attention.
And then go ahead and Be Astonished.
Grow beautifully deaf to the scoffing of the cynics who suit up in their every day steely sarcasm to numb themselves to a vulnerable joy, the cynics who only wear armour to shield the heart from the beauty that wounds, the weary who steel themselves against the wounds of all this glory. It can seem easier to reject the world before the world hurts you.
The thing is: guard your heart long enough with a shield of cynicism and that shield of cynicism becomes a lidded tomb over your heart withering up, numb and dead.
The cynics, they can only speak of the dark, of the obvious, and this is not hard. For all it’s supposed sophistication, it’s cynicism that’s simplistic. In a fallen world, how profound is it to see what’s broken?
It’s the brilliant who don’t deny the dark but who always seek the light in everything. So yeah, go ahead and be astonished.
Be astonished by the depths of grief which are but the foundations of the heights of joy, and grief and joy are of the same landscape of any soul really alive.
And be astonished by oppression and aggression and transgressions and be astonished, be a psalmist, and be admonished to just be ravished, by a world that makes children laugh wonder at the spray of sprinklers and the splatter of water balloons and go ahead and be like a child and say again, again to the rising of the sun, and again, again, to the crashing of waves and be astonished like the children for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Astonishing writing is a function of being astonished, startling writing births from being startled by glory, arrested by beauty, awed by all this.
Don’t go to bed at night until you’ve read from the dictionary, the lectionary, and pages of poetry are absolutely necessary.
The instruction for actually living a life of creativity, a life of communion, are simple: Pay Attention. Be Awed by God.
Then go Tell About It.
Tell about what happens when you pay attention, when you are astonished, when you have tasted the Gospel. Tell it to the kid lost in the park, the guy lost in the dark, the family losing their matriarch, a lost generation that needs to be marked by Him before then can make a mark for Him.
Pay Attention.
Be Astonished.
Tell About It.
Tell about it like the writer Walt Wangerin did to a boy from his inner city church Charlie, Charlie, who was raised by his grandmother in the rough part of Chicago.
Charlie was an exceptional student who after high school joined the army where he was an exceptional soldier because this is what the brave always do: Quit trying to fit. Why try to squeeze all your extraordinary into ordinary?
After leaving the army, Charlie came home to Chicago and… kind of didn’t know what to do. Charlie lost a part of his idea of who he was after the army, forgot a part of who he was, forgot where he came from and forgot where he was going, and when you forget, you start falling because this is the thing: All the brokenness in the world begins with the act of forgetting.
So Charlie fell in with the wrong kind of people— doing drugs, selling drugs, being drugged. Then he mugged a guy right outside the cop station and yeah, got caught.
And that’s where Walt Wangerin met him again, the boy who once sat up front on Sunday, now sitting behind bars — well really laying sprawled behind bars. Because when Walt was brought to Charlie’s cell, he found him laying face down, naked, on the floor, as though he were dead.
And Walt sat beside him to talk with him, to tell him about it, about a life of paying attention and being astonished, but Charlie was unresponsive… Answering with an occasional grunt, but no words. No Word.
Walt decided to keep talking and tell him about it, about the stories of things going on in the old neighborhood, things he had paid attention to, seen with his eyes, heard from the old women, overheard by just really listening.
Walt told Charlie about his grandmother, told him that he paid attention to the calendar and paid her weekly visits now that she no longer came to church on account of having lost her “uppers” — you know how it goes when you lose your upper dentures. Charlie grunted.
And Walt leaned forward and Walt asked it with a tease and twinkle: “You mean to tell me, Charlie, that your grandma has her uppers, but isn’t telling me that so she’s got an excuse not come to church?”
And Charlie opened a bit, Charlie resurrected a bit, and mumbled: “Yeah — Something like that.” His first words spoken in weeks!
And Walt came back the following day, and the following day and the following day, because our actual theology is best expressed in our actual hospitality.
How we open up our calendars and our doors and our schedules and our agendas and make room for people, because this is how we make room for God.
And this time Charlie was brought to a private room to sit with Walt. Charlie was mostly unresponsive. Though when someone knocked at the door, Charlie jolted, startled and confused.
And Walt paid attention to it — how Charlie had become so disoriented in his own life that he could no longer understand what the sound of someone knocking on the door meant.
And there are how many people down the street from you and across the table from and on the other side of the microphone from you — who are so disoriented that they don’t understand what the sound of Someone knocking on the door of their everything means. This is a world chalk-full of Charlies.
And Walt kept coming back again and again, sitting with Charlie, reminding him of his story and weaving the gospel into it and paying attention and being astonished and telling Charlie about it — Charlie as the prodigal coming home, Charlie as Lazarus coming back to life, Charlie as the One Whom Jesus loves, Walt kept putting skin on the Gospel — Charlie’s own skin.
Walt believed that Charlie had become so disconnected from his own life that he had disconnected from his soul, disconnected from humanity, and Walt believed that by weaving The story around him, the Word around Him, that he would be able to connect him to the story of his own life, and find a
path again to walk out of the darkness he’d been lost in.
In time, Charlie came back to the land of the living because his story had been woven through the Land of the Living — and it happened to him, just like Madeleine L’Engle said it would:
“Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos.”
The story named Charlie, helped him to become whole, to find the broken pieces of himself.
After Walt had finished telling about it, finished all his sentences, and Charlie had finished his one sentence, Charlie walked out of jail and into the world and paid attention and was astonished and found a wife and had some kids and told them about it, because a story, all the stories, had given Charlie back the pieces of himself, his name, who he was.
And that’s what you do.
You pay attention and you be astonished and you tell all the Charlies, all the kids, all the neighbours, the Story, their story, weaving His story around them and through theirs —
and your words are like handrails through the chaos so that all the Charlies find their way through to their own story that connects them to the greatest story of all.
There’s a certain tribe in Africa tribe, a tribe called the Himba, and when a woman of the Himba tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they wait till they hear the song of the child to come.
Because they know that every heart has its own unique beat… it own wild purpose. And when the women attune to the song of the coming child, they sing it out loud.
And then they return to the tribe and teach this child’s unique song to everyone else.
And when the child is born, the Himba tribe gathers and sings the child’s song to him or her. When the child begins school, when the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, when the time comes to get married, at each milestone the village gathers and chants the child’s song.
To the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits sins, falls short, or loses her way, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.
They sing their song to them because the Himba believe that change most happens when we remember who we are — remember our identity — Whose we are… that change most happens when you are named out of the chaos, when your name is sung into the cosmos
And that’s what all you creatives and writers are, all you painters and mothers and musicians and fathers and dreamers are—- you are the Himba Tribe, you are the psalmists who know the beat of Charlie’s heart when all the Charlies have forgotten how to be.
You are the artists, the friends, the parents, who know the rhythm of their return when the Charlies don’t know the road back.
You are the creatives who know the lyrics of why they are loved — when the Charlies, the kids, all the peoples, can’t remember quite how to live….
You are the soul sculptors who will sing their song — God’s song for them — when the Charlies have long forgotten the words to His Word — to their very souls.
You are the creatives who will just keep singing Charlie’s song
Till it perches in his lost places,
Tuning him to what grace is
and the lovesong of His Father
who never stops singing at all.
So go live communion. Go name the gifts in the midst of the chaos, and you make your life art, because it is the act of naming that is behind all art.
Look into the faces on the street corners this week, watch the faces at the grocery store and feel communion, the gratitude for the color of kids’ eyes, the wrinkling of the beautifully wise, the way the melody of us all coming and going rises and falls and disappears and rises again right there in an airport.
We’re all here and communion is made up of all these moments of thanksgiving, naming the gifts He gives and finding the names to ourselves again and telling the Charlies about it, so they find their own names.
It is too easy to exist instead of live.
Unless you know there is a clock ticking.
Live everyday like you’re terminal. Because you are.
Live everyday like your soul’s eternal. Because it is.
Robert Frost once said that a poem ‘begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.’
A poem is never a thought to begin with. So put down the phone and shut out the noise and silence the screaming to-do list long enough to pay attention — to pay attention long enough until you feel it too. Till you feel the poem of communion.
Pay attention long enough until you feel the burning ember of a lump right there in your aching throat, pay attention to the children running slipshod on the grass and look into the eyes of the woman looking lost on the street corner and listen to the seeking sound of the wind in the dark and pay attention till you feel the profound sense of right in this world, the profound sense of wrong, till you are wild for Home and God and a Love that is guaranteed to never end and start there.
Start to pay attention long enough that your one heart breaks open a bit in unabashed thanks to the One who loves you, till you live loved, till you do what you love, till you don’t stop till others have felt His love.
Pay attention, Be astonished, Tell others About It — about Him —- and don’t waste a moment because these are your startling gifts. Start now.
Not when your schedule opens up a bit, because it won’t, not two weeks from now when it gets easier, because it may not.
Pay attention, be astonished, tell About It — about Him — live the eucharist of thankful communion…
simply begin Now.
Related:
These farms kids are dreaming big this week and are driving a new tiny house across the country, from Portland, Oregon back to the farm. Follow our crazy dream this week on Instagram.
June 14, 2017
in a world where horrible things happen, where does happiness fit
This woman. Two minutes with her and you want to be best friends with her forever. She once flung open a door and surprised me with a dozen roses and the most lilting, lyrical laughter and her joy is the most contagious I’ve ever known. Lisa Harper — who’s been accused of being “happy” her whole life — felt compelled to study the theology of happiness in Scripture and discovered that not only does God literally define Himself as happy but that He’s called us to a covenant state of holy happiness too – that is, deep fulfillment and contentment in His presence and divine goodness – regardless of our circumstances. Lisa’s personal story includes such happiness hijackers as sexual abuse, the death of loved ones, and heartbreaking failed adoptions; yet she’s learned that true Biblical happiness is not the absence of sadness. It’s a grace to welcome Lisa to the farm’s front porch today…
A dear friend of mine lost her thirteen-year-old son in a tragic misadventure in their backyard recently.
He was a bright-eyed, fair-haired, mischievous, Huck Finn type of kid— not yet fully grown.
He was more like a man-child filled with promise of who he was to become.
Those of us who gathered at their home in the hours and days following his death were soft- spoken and red-eyed, deeply jarred by the terrible sadness of it all and deeply concerned about our friends and their younger son who lost his very best friend in the whole world.
A few days after the tragedy, another friend and I were standing quietly in their driveway—we’d done what we could for the moment and were just waiting to see if another task presented itself—when she asked softly, “This shouldn’t have happened. It’s just so horrible. How will they ever be happy again?”
It was more of a compassionate observation than a question, and I wasn’t about to sully her empathy by saying anything out loud, but the gist of her question has reverberated in my heart since: “Is it possible to be happy after horrible things happen to us or to those we love?”
Children shouldn’t die before their parents.
They shouldn’t be born with devastating birth defects or cancer or cerebral palsy.
Families in minivans shouldn’t be killed by drunk drivers.
Moms and dads shouldn’t stop loving each other and spew hatred and discord during their divorce process.
Friends shouldn’t become enemies.
Sex shouldn’t be abusive. Earthquakes shouldn’t wipe out entire villages. Pastors shouldn’t have affairs and leave the whole congregation feeling stunned and betrayed. There should be no such thing as a suicide bomber.
None of this seems remotely congruent with the idea of real, recurrent happiness, does it?
Yet all we have to do is turn on a television, scroll through social media, or poll the people in our neighborhood for proof that it happens Every. Single. Day.
Before you finish reading this sentence, someone else, somewhere else in the world—or possibly even one of your dear friends—will experience something tragic.
Their personal version of: this shouldn’t have happened.
Frankly, dear reader, I’m sure something that “shouldn’t have” has happened to you. Because we live in a broken world.
One that was marred from the start when Eve got deceived by a slithery liar and stepped out of the perfect existence God created for us in Eden. After that evil snake named satan (I refuse to capitalize his name, and thankfully my publisher agrees wholeheartedly with this minor grammatical mutiny) hissed his first lie, nobody had a chance of getting out of here unscathed.
Therefore, since life as we know it is inherently flawed and culture is a poor conduit of true, soul-satisfying happiness, where does that leave us?
Should we despondently hurl every book and DVD that includes the concept of happy into a raging bonfire? Should we forgo sitcoms with laugh tracks and only watch nature shows where the cheetah actually catches the limping baby antelope?
Is it possible for happiness, sadness, and even “badness” to coexist?
And if so, how do we orient our lives to be authentically joyful while not ignoring or becoming immune to the calamity and chaos around us and sometimes in us?
The key to hanging on to our happy—our deep sense of fulfillment, contentment, and delight—when horrible things happen is to recognize this:
Real, God-imbued happiness is not the absence of sadness or badness. Rather, it is hanging on to the truth of His sovereign goodness regardless of what’s going on within or around us.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear that happy and sad are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, these two passages from Proverbs and Lamentations, as well as several others, imply they’re more like two sides of the same coin:
Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief. (Prov. 14:13 esv)
My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam. 3:17–23 esv)
To forget what happiness is and remember the hope we have because of God’s steadfast love . . . that’s the poignant paradox of Christianity.
Delight and despair absolutely coexist. They ebb and flow like the tides.
Grief may surge while happy hangs back a bit, and vice versa.
However, in Christ, each wholly exists in the heart of mankind.
Circumstances may prompt one to rise to the occasion and eclipse the other for a while.
And our personality bent may compel us to manifest one more readily than the other.
But the proverbial bucket that dips into the well of our souls has the potential to scoop up both genuine joy and profound sorrow.
Lisa Harper is a master storyteller with a masters of Theological Studies from Covenant Seminary. She’s lauded as an engaging, hilarious communicator as well as an authentic and substantive Bible teacher. She’s been in vocational ministry for thirty years and has written fifteen books and Bible study curriculums but says her greatest accomplishment by far is that of becoming Missy’s (her adopted daughter from Haiti) mama!
In her new book, The Sacrament of Happy, she reminds us that God is good, He does good, and He calls us to enjoy the divine gift of happy in light of His sovereign goodness. And this project puts its money where it’s mouth is because a portion of the proceeds for every single book sold through July 31, 2017 will go to support a large sustainable garden to help eradicate malnutrition in the rural village of Neply, Haiti, where Lisa’s adopted daughter, Missy, was born. Lisa desperately wants you to know that happiness is a calling and a gift of God and reminds you that God is good, He does good, and He wants us to be happy!
[ Our humble thanks to B&H Publishing for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
June 12, 2017
when your prayer life is kinda crummy: the key to turning your prayer life around
So, this friend and I may have not met face-to-face, but we are soul-sister partners in ministry. Sherry Harney laboured thoughtfully and prayerfully with me to create the small-group discussion guide for my book, One Thousand Gifts, and our collaboration led to an engaging study guide that has helped people to live out the secrets of a joyful heart. The story we’re sharing today with you comes from Sherry’s new book, Praying with Eyes Wide Open and is sure to touch your heart and inspire you to connect with God with fresh new passion. It’s a grace to welcome Sherry to the farm’s front porch today…
The day started like any other, but by the time I went to bed that night I would look back and realize I had received one of the greatest gifts of my life.
It was about 6:00 a.m. on September 7, and it was my thirty-fourth birthday.
I was having some quiet time with God on the sofa in the living room before my three boys would wake up and bring joy, energy, and volume to our home.
I heard a stirring and looked up from my Bible to see my middle son quietly trying to sneak past me. Josh, our then 5-year-old, was headed to our bedroom. I found it curious that he was up this early and wondered if he had remembered it was my birthday.
I listened, trying to figure out what he might be up to. I realized he had snuck into my bedroom closet.
I knew there was a box filled with cards for all occasions tucked in the corner, but did not know if Josh was aware of this. I was surprised when my son appeared several minutes later with a card in one hand and a little unwrapped blue box in the other. It wasn’t just any box–it was his favorite school box.
He walked over to the sofa where I was reading and quietly handed me the card and box as he said, “Happy Birthday, Mom.”
I was amazed and deeply touched by this kind act of a little boy so early in life and so early in the morning. Even if there had been nothing in the box, the very thoughtfulness of his actions had already brought joy to my heart.
I looked at his little face and said, “Oh Josh, thank you so much.”
As I opened the card, which I still have, I had to smile.
Instead of addressing it to MOM, he had written the card to WOW.
Josh was still working on getting his W’s and M’s figured out, and it was quite early in the morning.
He signed the card, “I Love You.” There were all sorts of cards in that box in my closet. I was pleased that he had actually found a birthday card and not pulled out a sympathy card.
As I thanked Josh for the card, he just smiled. I held the little gift box on my lap. It was covered with pictures of racing cars and classic cars. Josh sat quietly as I opened it and looked at the contents. To my surprise there were four items in this special school box. As I looked at them, I realized that each one reflected Josh’s love for me.
I took each gift out of the box and held it in my hand; I was overwhelmed by a deep sense that this was a special moment of love between a son and his mother.
The first item was his favorite matchbox car. I turned to Josh, thanking him for such a sacrificial gift. I told him that I knew this was his favorite car, and he nodded.
The second gift was a quarter. This was all the money he had accessible to him at the time. “Josh, how special that you would give me all the money you have.”
The third gift was a handheld toy that he always took with him whenever we traveled in our car. It was a little pinball game. This was before video games, cell phones, or electronic gadgets were used to entertain kids while traveling. He loved this little travel toy.
I sat there and thought to myself, “Wow, could this gift get any better! His favorite school box, all the money he had to give, his favorite matchbox car and his special travel toy.”
You can imagine the heart of a mother receiving such a loving and sacrificial gift.
As I looked back in the box to retrieve my final item, the significance of this gift was not as obvious. I picked up the item and held it in the air so both Josh and I could see it.
It was a set of children’s plastic play handcuffs.
I knew there had to be significance to this gift but was unable to come up with it as I had with the previous three. I had worked as a second-grade teacher for a number of years so I used my educational skills to unravel the mystery.
Kindly, I spoke to him, “Josh, what were you thinking when you put this in my special gift box?”
He spoke quietly, “Well, I was thinking since today is your birthday, maybe you could put one handcuff on one of your wrists, and I could put the other one on my wrist, and we could spend the whole day together.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, “Oh Josh, thank you so much, I would love to spend the day with you.” And we did!
That experience has become a picture of love that I continue to remember and share with others.
In that moment, the Holy Spirit impressed this thought on me: “You know the joy you feel right now toward your son? That’s how I feel when you want to be with me, to talk with me, to encounter me.”
I knew God was teaching me through Josh’s gift box. I was overjoyed that my son would give with such sacrifice. I was also touched that what he wanted most was just to connect with me.
With each passing year I learn more about prayer. This experience with my son Josh seared truth deep in my soul.
Prayer is not first and foremost about making lists, getting our words exactly right, reciting memorized supplications, or a particular posture.
Prayer is about a deep and vital relationship with the God who made and loves us.
It is about coming to our heavenly Father and saying, I want to be with you, all day long!
When this is our heart condition, our words become prayer and so does our silence…for we are connected (handcuffed if you will) to the God who loves to be with His children.
When we realize God’s heart for us, we naturally hunger to communicate with Him and be in His presence all the time.
God delights in your prayers, worship, and company.
Draw near Him over and over throughout your day.
Pray with your eyes open or closed.
You can be seated, kneeling, walking, playing, or doing chores. Offer what you have as a loving and trusting child.
Just like I rejoiced in the seemingly small offerings my son Josh gave me on my birthday so many years ago, God will delight in everything you offer to Him.
Most of all, God wants to be with you…all day long.
Sherry Harney is the mother of three grown sons, a wife, a writer, and a speaker who has a relentless passion for prayer and helping God’s people connect more intimately with the God who loves them. Sherry serves as the leadership director at Shoreline Community Church in Monterey, California. Along with her husband, Kevin, they are cofounders of Organic Outreach International and continue to write small group study guides with several authors.
Sherry’s new book, Praying with Eyes Wide Open, A Life-Changing Way to Talk with God introduces new and ancient ways to pray, engage with God, and find yourself handcuffed to your Creator in the flow of each day.
In this book you will be invited to pray with your eyes wide open (literally and figuratively), with your ears open to the voice of God, your heart open to honest communication with your Maker, and your life open to be used by Jesus to impact the world around you.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
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